


Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

by 94BottlesOfSnapple



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Dragon Matt Murdock, Identity Reveal, M/M, Mutual Pining, Oblivious Foggy Nelson, Prophecy, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:40:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26131288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/94BottlesOfSnapple/pseuds/94BottlesOfSnapple
Summary: No one gets kidnapped by dragons anymore. No one but Foggy Nelson, apparently. Well, ok, he's determined NOT to be kidnapped by a dragon, it's fine, people dodge prophecies all the time, right? Right. It's fine.Foggy stays in the city, gets a drop-dead gorgeous best friend, graduates law school, and otherwise distracts himself from his impending doom.For the prompt: "Wings"
Relationships: Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson
Comments: 46
Kudos: 362
Collections: Daredevil and Defenders Exchange 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kotaka_kun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kotaka_kun/gifts).



The first time someone told Foggy there was a dragon running around New York, it was two nights into Columbia’s freshman orientation and he laughed in their face. A dragon? In the city? No way. No dragon would ever choose to roost in a place so crowded. They liked their privacy.

Coincidentally, this was, in fact, the very reason Foggy was determined to stay in the city his entire natural life.

See, most people didn’t bother with oracles anymore — didn’t see the need for a life prophecy in a world where futures were all but predicted by algorithm and magic was so rare one had to actively seek it out — but Foggy had the luck to be stuck with a traditional and extremely superstitious family. So for his third birthday, he’d been carted off to the most trusted fortuneteller in the neighborhood (actually Bess Mahoney from next door, whose son Brett would someday be Foggy’s sworn nemesis) to have his future read. According to that reading, Foggy’s fate was to be hoarded by a dragon.

Seriously. Like a princess in a fairytale. Even though the last time a dragon had kidnapped someone had to have been at least a couple centuries ago. They tended to keep to themselves up in mountain ranges and stuff. Didn’t like a lot of bustle and noise. So like, maybe there was some cult out there wacky enough to try and offer him up to a dragon, but Foggy wasn’t liable to meet them in Manhattan.

His parents thought the fate was inevitable. Foggy was determined it wouldn’t be. As long as he didn’t do anything risky like study abroad in the Alps, he could probably sidestep it. No, mother, he did not want to enter a Paladin academy. He was going to stay as far from magic and adventure as possible. He was going to bury himself in books. He was going to law school.

That determination carried him all the way to Columbia University, on just enough scholarship money to hopefully stop both him and his family from drowning in debt over it. And once there, his sparkling personality afforded him an invite to a party. It had been a nice party — fairly chill, no one sloppy drunk or bouncing off the walls yet. Foggy had his solo cup of cheap beer. Yes, it was shaping up to be a decent night until Katy-with-a-y — as opposed to Katie-with-an-ie — sidled up to tell him about the dragon. She was supremely hot, like knockout beauty pageant hot, but it didn’t stop Foggy from laughing.

“There’s no way,” he told her.

“It’s true! A whole bunch of guys saw it on the roof of one of the dorm buildings,” she said with the kind of nasally authority that came from being a tipsy gossip. “It’s got like, a fifty-foot wingspan, and it’s staking out the freshmen for virgins to kidnap.”

Foggy choked on his beer.

“You’re fucking kidding me, right?”

Now, Theo, for example, might have taken this warning seriously. Foggy, however, was well versed in both dragons and the douchebaggery of college guys, especially the kind looking to score. And so he could tell that the little dragon rumor was nothing more than a transparent and supremely creepy attempt by upperclassmen to get freshman girls to sleep with them.

Saying this to the faces of the entire frat who started the rumor, in the middle of their party, was probably not Foggy’s wisest decision.

He had plenty of time to contemplate this while tied to a flagpole.

Truthfully, he spent most of it bemoaning that he couldn’t get any ice on the bump on his head. And also that he was probably just about the only person on earth who’d find themselves in this situation in the year 2005. Tied to a flagpole by bullies like he was in an 80s teen movie? Yuck.

It was literally the worst way Foggy could think of to meet an extremely hot dude, which was why the universe decided to send one wandering past him at that very moment, despite the fact that it was fuck o’clock at night. Still, help was help, and Foggy really, really wanted to get down before he lost feeling in his arms. He wet his lips.

“Hey! Hey, buddy, can you help a guy out?” he called.

The dude on the sidewalk paused and tipped his head in Foggy’s direction.

“Yes! Yes, you, thank you, a little assistance would be majorly appreciated.”

The stranger approached, getting more ridiculously handsome with each new detail Foggy could pick out about him. He was wearing a pair of cheap-looking sunglasses and a too-large maroon sweater, so there wasn’t much that Foggy could determine about his eyes or silhouette, but his strong nose and his fluffy brown hair and the soft shape of his mouth were making Foggy’s chest fizz like it was full of soda bubbles.

“What seems to be the problem?” the guy asked.

His voice was low and enunciated and Foggy maybe kind of broke out in goosebumps. That didn’t make the question any less bizarre, though.

“I’m kind of tied to this flagpole?” Foggy pointed out, baffled — and then caught sight of the white cane in the stranger’s hand. “Oh, shit, you’re blind. Sorry.”

The guy’s mouth tightened a little at the corners, and Foggy realized he’d made a misstep of some sort.

“I promise I can still untie knots,” he told Foggy, and there was a lilting tone in his voice like a joke but...

“Sorry,” Foggy said again. “I didn’t mean... Um. There’s one directly in front of you, about at the height of your shoulder, and another a few inches higher. The other two are on the back side of the pole.”

The stranger nodded.

“I’ll get the ones in the back first,” he said, still chilly but polite.

“Thanks, man,” Foggy said over his shoulder as the rope around his wrists began to shift. “I, uh, I’m Foggy Nelson, by the way.”

“Matt,” came the low reply, fanned right up against the back of Foggy’s neck.

Apparently the handsome stranger — _Matt_ — had stepped up onto the concrete to get a better angle on the knots. Which was normal and made sense and was definitely not a reason for Foggy’s guts to go squirmy or his heart to start racing.

“It. Uh. It’s nice to meet you,” Foggy offered. “I mean better circumstances would have been preferable, obviously but, um.”

He couldn’t think of anything else to say. Ugh. Figured. Part of it was being in that fuzzy halfway point between pleasantly drunk and a tired, stomachache-y partied-out stage. Part of it was probably the bump on his head. The last bit? That was just Foggy Nelson’s unfortunate hot-people-induced nerves rendering him totally brainless. And so, Matt continued to free Foggy in awkward silence. When he’d finally finished in the back and came around front to work on the knots there, Matt spoke again.

“How, ah... How exactly does someone find themselves in this position?”

“I’ve only got my big mouth to blame,” lamented Foggy.

“What did you do?” Matt wondered as he deftly picked the knots apart.

Fuck, even his hands were pretty. Not dainty, or feminine, but. Pretty. Well-proportioned. Elegant.

It took Foggy about three seconds too long to remember he’d been asked a question.

“Oh! Um. Well, the guys in Delta Theta were like, starting this rumor about a dragon — to try and convince freshman girls to have sex with them so it won’t come after them for being virgins.”

Matt’s mouth curled in a vicious-looking sneer. It was super intimidating, but it kind of warmed Foggy’s heart that someone else was indignant about the situation too.

“I see.”

“Yeah,” Foggy continued, “well I told them to fuck off about it and the result is what you s— uh. Feel. Before you. Said they were leaving me out as an offering for the dragon. Which is just. Super ironic, if you know me, and— and I’m rambling. Sorry.”

Matt shook his head, then pulled apart the final knot with an absolutely adorable victorious noise.

“No, no, I. I don’t mind. I like the sound of your voice,” he said.

“Oh,” squeaked Foggy. “Um, cool.”

He tried to stomp some feeling into his feet, but ended up tripping off the concrete like a dork when his knees buckled. Matt caught him by the hips to steady him. Even through his clothes, Foggy could feel the heat of Matt’s palms.

“I’d feel better if I walked you back to your dorm,” Matt said, letting go and taking a polite step back. “Just... Just so I know you made it back ok.”

“Yeah,” agreed Foggy, too breathless. “Yeah, that’d be cool.”

“Which way?”

“This, um— to your right.”

They made their way back towards Foggy’s dorm together, with Foggy stumbling over narrating direction changes the entire time.

“So what was super ironic about it?” Matt wondered suddenly, when they were about halfway there, and Foggy had to mentally backtrack to figure out what he was asking.

“Oh! Oh, well.” He shrugged. “There’s this prophecy that I’m gonna get, like, nabbed by a dragon.”

Matt stumbled a little then, and Foggy threw out an arm to keep him from taking a nosedive into the concrete.

“A prophecy?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” sighed Foggy. “Super old-fashioned, right?”

“No it’s, um, really interesting. What was the exact wording...?” Matt asked, pushing his shades back up his nose from where they’d slipped down.

Ahh, a loophole man, Foggy thought with a startling amount of fondness for a guy he’d literally just met. Probably looking for a way Foggy could fulfill the letter of the prophecy rather than the spirit. He recited out the familiar poem, as pointless as the exercise would be, because Matt really seemed to care and it kind of melted Foggy’s heart:

_Marked with scales of ruby red_

_A dragon much affected_

_Thieves you from the path you tread_

_To somewhere unexpected_

“I... I see,” Matt said after several seconds of silence. “That, uh. That does sound pretty, um, concrete.”

Foggy shrugged.

“Yeah, but I mean, don’t worry about it. When’s the last time someone really saw a dragon around here? I figure as long as I stick close to home, it’s fine.”

The twist of Matt’s mouth seemed troubled, but he didn’t press. Which was fine for Foggy — a prophecy like that was only ever a downer to talk about. Instead, Foggy eloquently changed the subject to hobbies and interests. Matt was pretty reserved, but he did admit to an interest in cooking, origami, and— in the realm of lifelong pursuits — reforming the US justice system. He was honestly breathtaking when he spoke about it, and Foggy’s own reasons for pursuing a legal career felt a little embarrassing and self-centered in comparison. Matt wanted to defend people from a system stacked against them from the get-go. To help them get justice and the things they were owed — reparations, accommodations, acknowledgement and redress for their suffering. His words lit a fire in Foggy somewhere so deep he could only really call it his soul. The flame was new and weak, but it burned hot because Matt’s words brought to mind family, friends, neighbors... How often had they needed this kind of help over the years? And how often had it not been available to them? What if this was something Foggy could actually do? Use the degree he was looking to earn not just to steer clear of the prophecy and accumulate enough money to build a safety net for his family, but to help make his home, his whole city, a better place for the people that lived there? What if he had that ability inside him, the way Matt so clearly did?

The blaze of that thought felt like hope, like an epiphany, and Foggy prayed that he’d remember it in the morning.

When they reached the dorm building, Matt mentioned he lived there too, so he might as well walk Foggy to his door and make sure he really, really got back safe. Together they climbed one flight, two, and made their way quietly down the hallway so they didn’t disturb anyone trying to sleep.

“Here we are up ahead, room 312; you’ve done your duty and seen me safely home, sir knight,” Foggy joked, grinning and then narrating the goofy curtsy he followed the declaration with.

“Room 312?” repeated Matt. “That’s... This is my room, I just moved in this afternoon.”

In other words, around the time that Foggy was familiarizing himself with campus and then getting invited to a party. They’d completely missed one another.

“Oh wow, we’re roomies and we didn’t even know it! What are the odds of that?” Foggy laughed — he’d been worried about getting a roommate, but knowing now who he’d been paired with, those worries seemed silly. “It’s destiny, we’ve gotta become besties now.”

A long silence followed this declaration. Matt twisted his cane in his hands.

“I don’t think, uh...”

And... That was panic. Great. Awesome.

“Oh.” A cold pit opened in Foggy’s stomach. “I just thought maybe you wanted to...”

Idiot. Idiot. Of course. He’d completely misconstrued things. Matt was just being a Good Samaritan or whatever, and Foggy had taken it as overtures of friendship like the awkward dweeb he was. He could already see the months stretching out before him in horrible clarity. It was gonna be agonizing if he had to spend a semester rooming with a guy who thought he was weird or annoying.

“We can just, stay out of each other’s way,” said Matt, like it was a compromise.

And... Well... If that was how Matt wanted things to be, what could Foggy do except agree? After all, Matt had totally saved his bacon earlier. And forcing someone to put up with you didn’t exactly tend to endear you to them.

So, stay out of each other’s way it was. Foggy let Matt enter their room first, tried not to look too closely at Matt’s side — a duffel bag, a chunky laptop, cheap headphones, dark sheets on the bed — and slipped off his shoes before collapsing into bed. That pretty much set the tone between them going forward. They didn’t chat, didn’t walk to class together, didn’t eat together. Like they’d never even met. Sometimes Foggy felt as though a glass wall had sprung up between the two halves of the room. Still, he couldn’t get the night they met off his mind. Matt’s passion, his good heart. Even if Matt didn’t want to be friends, Foggy could show his appreciation by being a thoughtful roommate — so he did a little research and adjusted accordingly. Made sure to keep the floor clear of his stuff, listened to his music with headphones so he didn’t drown out Matt’s screen reader, and announced his comings and goings so he didn’t catch Matt unaware. He even chanced buying a second blueberry muffin one morning, and offering it to Matt with the excuse that the cashier had thrown in an extra — which was a blatant lie but was definitely much more casual than actively buying it on purpose.

That night, Matt stayed out late. Way late. Late enough that Foggy was startled awake when the door banged open. Backlit by the hall lights, Matt stood in the doorway. He didn’t enter. Just stood there. Still blinking sleep from his eyes, Foggy slid out of bed.

“Hey, um, welcome back,” he said cautiously, but there was no response. “Uh... Matt? Did something happen...?”

Matt nodded, shakily — once, twice — taking slow steps forward. And then he slammed into Foggy, winding him. At first, a distant and ridiculous corner of Foggy’s brain thought he was being grappled — but after a few seconds it became clear that, no, this was just a very desperate hug. Foggy... Wasn’t sure what to do with that.

Matt smelled like woodsmoke, warm and comforting.

He was also breathing hard, like he’d run all the way back to the dorm. That was probably of more import.

“Whoa, hey, are you o—”

“I do,” Matt said, hugging tighter and burying his face in Foggy’s neck. “I do want to be friends. I do.”

Gently patting Matt’s back, Foggy returned the hug.

“Hey, that’s fine. Actually, no, that’s great. Let’s be friends.”

And so they were.

* * *

The next morning, they walked to class together for the first time, side by side. The tap of Matt’s cane was a soothing metronome, and the fall air was crisp and bright. If Foggy took a deep enough breath, he could catch a trace of Matt’s scent too, and it mingled perfectly with the smell of the leaves piling up in the grass to either side of the walkway.

It was a lovely morning, ripe to be ruined by frat guys.

“Oh boy,” Foggy muttered under his breath as he realized who was headed in their direction.

Matt tilted his head.

“What?”

“It’s a couple of the Delta Theta guys,” he explained. “They’re coming this way.”

Torn between beating a hasty retreat and marching past like he hadn’t even noticed them and was in a hurry, Foggy just ended up frozen. It was Matt who nudged him on and got him moving again.

“It’ll be ok,” he promised in a low voice, just barely loud enough to be heard over the tap of his cane on the concrete. “I’m here.”

Foggy really, really hoped that was enough. The distance between them closed, quickly — but the frat guys stumbled to a stop as they caught sight of Foggy and Matt. Their faces paled. And then they turned tail and started hurrying in the opposite direction like their asses were on fire, backpacks swinging on their shoulders. In fact, they hoofed it so good it didn’t take more than a minute to lose sight of them.

“Wow. They ran off. You’d think they really had seen a dragon or something,” Foggy told Matt, shaking his head.

Matt just smiled serenely.

“Well,” he said. “You never know.”

* * *

A couple days later, one of the younger Delta Theta guys shuffled up beside Foggy on his way to history class. David? Foggy was pretty sure his name was David.

“Hey,” said Probably-David, sounding nervous.

“Uh. Hey?”

“Listen uh. About... About that party last month? I just, I want you to know I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for things to get so— It’s just that when I told Hunter about seeing the dragon he said it’d make me seem badass, I didn’t think he was going to tell people it was going after. Y’know.” Foggy gave Probably-David a sideways glance as the guy rambled; his face was as red as a beet. “Virgins. And, and Jake and the others were just trying to keep me out of trouble.”

“Right,” Foggy said slowly, trying to remember which frat guys were Hunter and Jake.

“I was going to come back and get you down! But, uh, by the time I could slip away, you were already...”

Foggy really wasn’t sure what any of that had to do with anything. When he told Probably-David so, the dude’s stammering ramped up like two notches. By the time he finally had a couple of fragments strung together asking about ‘your, um, rescuer’ Foggy had started to formulate an idea of what was up.

Somehow, _Matt_ had scared the bejeezus out of the Delta Theta guys. And they were looking to Foggy to try and cool his jets or something. Man. He really should’ve known something was up with Matt’s blasé attitude; even after only a handful of weeks Foggy could tell the guy had precisely zero chill, especially when it came to bullies or injustice.

“Look, I promise not to let him, like, enact vengeance upon you or whatever,” Foggy assured David, rolling his eyes a little.

But the guy shook his head.

“No, I um. I mean are you ok?”

“Uh... What?” asked Foggy, baffled.

“He hasn’t, he didn’t hurt you, or anything?”

So it wasn’t himself he was worried about, it was Foggy. Bizarre. What exactly would Foggy have to worry about from the guy who’d saved him? Unless David really was convinced that Matt was the dragon he thought he’d seen. It was kind of sweet in its own way, Foggy supposed. Maybe David wasn’t so bad after all.

After reassuring the poor guy that he was just fine and Matt was very friendly, they parted ways.

* * *

With Matt at his side and most of Delta Theta still diving into bushes to avoid them, Foggy’s life at Columbia fell into a comfortable routine. Breakfast with Matt, class, lunch, either more class or studying, dinner, homework, semi-successful attempts to drag Matt away from his desk to actually do something fun, sleep — and then the cycle started all over again. Weekends were dedicated to either frantically finishing work he should have done earlier in the week or goofing off as much as possible, which Foggy usually accomplished by broadening Matt’s horizons, experience-wise. For example: taking Matt to the animal shelter to pet kittens? Absolutely fucking phenomenal, the guy melted like butter. The resulting grainy photo of a bewildered Matt covered in pint-sized fluffballs was Foggy’s flip-phone background for a solid two months. Not that their other adventures weren’t equally entertaining — a trip to an ice rink where Matt proved to have the balance of a figure skater and Foggy got to reminisce about peewee hockey, trips to the public library for audiobooks and movies and the occasional trash harlequin novel to be read aloud by Foggy in weird voices, late nights wandering the city drunk-tired and with cheap pizza in hand.

Drunk-tired only, because Matt, bless him, was too much of a nerdy workaholic to allow Thirsty Thursday— or even Friday or Saturday. And so, only after finals did Foggy have the time and leverage to argue Matt into getting them both really properly roaringly drunk.

Drunk Matt was a _delight_. Foggy wanted him around forever. He bounced on his toes, he giggled, he didn’t get that twisted and frustrated look on his face when his stammer cropped up. And best of all, he and his freakishly warm furnace body cozied right up to Foggy’s side. A delight.

Foggy wanted to kiss him.

He didn’t, because even Drunk Foggy knew that was a horrible idea. But... He wanted to.

Instead, he just watched. Savored the unguarded way expressions flickered over Matt’s face. Giddy, then determined, then... Well, then Matt tilted his head and stuck out his tongue. But not in the thoughtful ‘poke my tongue out the corner of my mouth as I work’ way — no, he’d gone full on ‘stretch out my tongue as far as it goes’.

“What are you doing, buddy?” Foggy laughed. “It’s not quite the season for catching snowflakes on your tongue yet.”

Matt looked startled for a second, then adorably puzzled. He tucked his tongue back into his mouth, brows still scrunched together.

“I didn’t want to catch a _snowflake_ ,” he told Foggy. “I was trying to get a better sm—”

Matt cut off, then, shaking his head the way Foggy sometimes felt the urge to do, as though it would fling off the haze of drunkenness like rainwater.

“Get a better what?”

“No, it.” Matt shrugged, posture awkward and embarrassed. “It’s nothing.”

The poor guy probably just didn’t want to admit whatever boozy nonsensical thought had popped into his normally genius brain. Fair enough. So Foggy let Matt keep his dignity and on they went, stumbling their way back to the dorm.

* * *

Matt wouldn’t come to Foggy’s for winter break — which Foggy supposed was fair, the whole Nelson clan was a bit much to spring on a guy all at once — but they did exchange some gifts the day before parting ways.

Matt’s wasn’t wrapped, but it had been carefully hidden away in one of the drawers of his desk. He handed it over almost shyly — a black cord holding a large red pendant that had been etched with a series of symbols.

“Oh, wow,” Foggy breathed as he accepted it. “I’ve never seen runes like this before.”

Matt ducked his head.

“Yeah, they’re, uh. Old. My dad taught them to me. It’s, um, a good luck charm.”

Foggy couldn’t for the life of him decide what the pendant was made out of. Garnet, maybe? It was a stone of some sort, he thought, too hard to be anything else but too... Too organic-feeling to be metal. He rubbed his thumb over it thoughtfully.

“Do you like it?” asked Matt, fiddling with the sleeve of his sweater.

“Yeah, man, it’s awesome,” Foggy promised, slipping the necklace over his head. “Here, I got you something too.”

He let the mystery go, reaching down to grab a wrapped box of his own and hand it off to Matt. Like a kid, Foggy crossed his fingers as Matt unwrapped the box. It had been a gift several months in the making, spurred by a late-night stop at a 24-hour drugstore — Matt and Foggy had wasted almost half an hour trying on novelty sunglasses together, with Foggy lending his quality color commentary as always. But it had made him realize... Matt’s shades were old. Way old. Scuffed up lenses, loose screws, wiggly nose guards, the works. So Foggy had started searching. Shape first, he’d decided, because Matt had been particularly pleased with the feel of a pair of round frames. Then, quality — Matt needed something durable, because he wasn’t rolling in enough dough to buy a new pair every year.

After unwrapping the box, Matt slid a finger along the seam of the glasses case and pried it open. The glasses toppled out, but Matt caught them before they fell more than a couple inches. And then he paused, running his fingers over the frames.

“Are these. Are these the glasses from the drugstore?” Matt asked, and his tone was somewhere between mystified and pleased, so— probably positive?

“Not quite the same. These ones are— a little nicer, so they can stand some wear and tear. I figured you could do with a new pair.”

Matt removed his old glasses to reveal an expression of heartbreakingly sincere surprise.

“I’m... Thank you,” he said. “That’s... Really, thank you, Foggy.”

Then Matt slid the new glasses on, slow and delicate. They looked good — a little unorthodox maybe, but in a positive way. Better than the cheap things Matt had tried on at the drugstore, and miles better than the hand-me-downs that had been falling apart on his face.

Foggy smiled.

“Yeah, buddy, no problem.”

* * *

It hadn’t occurred to Foggy that he’d never seen Matt in anything less than baggy sweaters until he got back from class one warm afternoon in early Spring to find the guy tugging on a t-shirt with the most impossible guns imaginable.

“Matt, holy shit!”

Matt jumped, twisting to face Foggy.

“W-what?” he asked, hurriedly patting himself over — head, back, ass. “What is it?”

“Your arms, buddy! They’re huge! How did I never know you were so buff?”

Matt’s tense posture sagged. He blew out a breath, tipping his head up towards the ceiling like he was asking the Big Guy for the patience to deal with Foggy.

“They’re just arms.”

“Extremely ripped arms, Matthew! This is what you get for wearing giant sweaters all the time — secret biceps! You should be showing these off!”

Matt shook his head.

“I don’t need to,” he pointed out.

Which... Ok, yeah, fair enough. Matt got a lot of action just on his charming smile and smooth delivery. If he started showing off his arms he’d be so mobbed by girls Foggy might never see him again.

“Yeah, yeah, rub it in why don’t you.”

Matt laughed, his expression delighted.

“Are they really that impressive?”

He flexed an arm experimentally and Foggy just about dropped to the floor. To make up for the fact that his knees had turned into jello, he leaned heavily on the footboard of his bed. _Stupid_ secret biceps.

“Yeah, buddy. They’re, uh. Pretty impressive.”

Matt bounced on his heels a little, pleased as a peacock — and then shrugged and tried to act shy. What a ham.

“I’m sure yours are nice too,” Matt offered, ridiculously earnest for someone whose hand held onto Foggy’s absolutely-not-jacked arm almost every day.

On the plus side, rolling his eyes at least helped dispel some of Foggy’s breathlessness. He managed to take the three steps over to Matt’s side of the room.

“Ok, ok, I appreciate the supportiveness but you don’t have to butter me up. C’mere, you flatterer, I’m going in for a hair ruffle.”

Matt’s expression was inquisitive, but he didn’t step back and even tilted his head in Foggy’s direction. So, Foggy reached up and mussed his hair. Matt leaned further into the touch with a quiet hum.

“I’m not— I wasn’t just flattering,” he insisted afterwards. “I like your arms. I don’t know how they look but they feel nice. They’re comfy.”

Foggy knew very well that comfy and sexy were not even remotely the same. And people commenting on his body had made him uncomfortable for about as long as he’d known that he wasn’t quite built the same as TV said he should be. But... Matt was paying him an honest compliment. He liked Foggy just the way he was. And that was worth pushing past the discomfort, because Matt wasn’t the kind of guy to talk shit behind your back or say things he didn’t mean. And Foggy... He wanted Matt to say nice things about him. Having a friend like Matt was worth working through any barriers he’d put up in self defense.

So Foggy swallowed and ruffled Matt’s hair again and thanked him. And even though it was only one small step, it felt good. Freeing. As bright as the grin on Matt’s face.

* * *

Things weren’t always sunshine and inside jokes and Matt’s smiles, though. Matt was a pensive person, and... Well. Foggy would never say the guy was fragile or delicate, but he had his issues. Things that got past his facade. Things that upset him.

One of them was grades.

Anything less than a perfect hundred had him quietly gritting his teeth, so when Foggy returned to their room with a care package of snacks from his mom to find that Matt had upended his own chair, tossed his shades on his desk, and scraped up his knuckles punching the wall... It didn’t exactly come as a great shock to learn Matt had gotten a C- on his latest big assignment.

When the usual comforting words and distracting jokes had no effect, Foggy set to some delicate verbal prodding. Matt didn’t like to talk about his problems, but with everything else off the table Foggy figured maybe talking it out was the best way forward.

“I could have done better,” Matt admitted at last, jaw tight and angry. “I _should_ have done better.”

“Matt, come on, it’s _one_ assignment.”

“All my dad wanted was for me to study and use my head, and I got a grade like that? I’m, I’m letting him down, he’d be so _disappointed_ —”

Foggy twitched at those words. They hit too close to home, too similar to feelings that had churned like sludge through Foggy’s veins as a middle schooler — that maybe if he’d been better, his bio mom wouldn’t have left. Hearing sentiments like that from Matt about himself was simultaneously heartbreaking and enraging.

“You are _not_ a disappointment,” he said, firm and sharp to cut through any potential protest. “You’re the best person I know, Matt. You work so hard, you put your whole heart into things. That C- doesn’t define you, buddy. It’s just a letter. You’re worth so much more than that, and I’m not gonna let you tear yourself down over it.”

Matt shook his head, scoffed.

“I’m not, I’m not supposed to get grades like that. It’s _my_ fault. _I_ slacked off. What does it matter if I do tear myself down?” he muttered. “Why should it be your problem?”

“Because even though it apparently hasn’t got through your thick skull, Murdock, I actually care about you!”

Matt froze. His expression, one of tense frustration, morphed into something soft.

“Foggy, I...”

The fight went out of Matt like air from a balloon, and Foggy gently led him so they were sitting side by side on Foggy’s bed — a few feet apart, just to give the guy a little breathing room.

“Look, I know... I know me saying that stuff isn’t magically gonna fix the problem,” Foggy admitted. “But we’re buddies, right? And buddies help each other. So let me help you push back against that negative self-talk, ok? And in the meantime we can see if the professor’ll give you a re-do, or let you submit some extra credit or something.”

“That sounds, that sounds good. Thanks, Fogs.”

“No problem, Matt. Calmer now?”

Matt sighed, scrubbing his hands over his face.

“Yeah, I’m. I’m. Yeah. Sorry.”

“No, dude, you don’t have to be sorry, I get it,” Foggy promised. “You’ve put a lot of pressure on yourself and stuff.”

He ducked his head and rubbed his arms and looked away from Matt for fear of catching sight of a guilty face.

“Ughhh. I just. I feel like a kid who tired himself out throwing a tantrum.”

Foggy laughed.

“Need a nap, bud?”

“Yeah, kinda.”

With a creak of the bed springs, Matt flopped over. To his right. Directly onto Foggy’s lap.

Matt seemed as startled as Foggy when his head landed on Foggy’s thigh. But he didn’t sit back up and he didn’t scoot away and Foggy sure as hell wasn’t gonna push him off. So he just sat there, buzzing in his skin. Finally, Matt spoke.

“Will. Will you do that thing again? You know the. The.”

He couldn’t seem to find the words. Eventually he fumbled for one of Foggy’s hands and pressed it, palm-down, against the crown of his head.

“Oh. Uh. You mean...?”

Cautiously, Foggy petted Matt’s hair and was met with an approving noise. He continued, adding a light scratch or two to Matt’s scalp with each pass. Matt practically purred at the sensation, rubbing his cheek drowsily against Foggy’s thigh, and Foggy’s heart jolted in his chest. He didn’t stop, though. Couldn’t stop. Too entranced by the picture of Matt so loose and stress-free.

“Thanks, Fogs,” murmured Matt in a voice sweet enough to leave a cavity. “Feels good.”

Foggy gulped.

“Yeah, uh. No problem, buddy.”

When Matt’s breathing slowed and deepened in sleep, his expression was heart-achingly peaceful. Foggy didn’t dare move for fear of waking him up. It was like when a cat crawled into your lap — you’d have to be some kind of evil villain to dislodge it.

So, Foggy stayed sitting, very still, until Matt awoke.

* * *

It became a sort of tradition for them — whenever Matt was stressed, he’d flop down on the wrong bed, and when Foggy reached out to him he’d push his head up into the touch like a cat seeking attention. But no matter how many times it happened, Foggy could never quite get his pulse under control. Which was ridiculous. It was just a stress relief thing, like how when he was stressed Matt plied him with comfort foods and shoulder rubs. Or how the two of them still walked each other to classes they didn’t share. Sometimes you just needed someone in your corner.

People... Didn’t always get that.

It didn’t help, Foggy supposed in hindsight, that Matt and Marci had pretty much hated each other from the moment they met. They’d nitpicked at each other in class endlessly. In all honesty, Foggy had thought it was like, a weird sexual tension thing at first. Matt’s taste tended towards hot girls, for all that he couldn’t see them, and he loved arguing. So Foggy had figured that Marci, who was mega hot and confident and argued with him about everything, would be his kryptonite. As for Marci, well, Foggy hadn’t yet met anyone who could resist Matt’s charms for long.

But Matt hadn’t wanted to be charming to her, it turned out. And Marci... She had wanted Foggy. Which was... Look, Foggy never begrudged his best friend, but the fact of the matter was that when people met the two of them together, Matt and Foggy, it was always Matt that ended up catching their attention. But Marci didn’t want Matt. She wanted Foggy. And she was badass and smart and pretty. So of course he said yes.

They clicked, actually. Marci’s sense of humor was mean, the way Foggy’s could get when he wasn’t watching his mouth. She built up his confidence, and he gave her a safe space to let down her guard. Also the sex was very hot. Molten core of the earth hot.

The one thing Foggy didn’t like was Marci’s snippy comments about Matt. About Matt, and about how close he and Foggy were. They left Foggy feeling off-balance, unsettled, upset. Still, they were infrequent enough that he could brush them off, and he tried not to mention either Marci or Matt to the other. A careful balance. Until four months in when Marci actually noticed the red pendant Foggy always wore underneath his shirts.

The two of them had mostly been focused on each other whenever they were in the room together, rather than what they were wearing. But one afternoon when Matt had a class and a study group back to back, Foggy had brought Marci back to the dorm room. They sat on Foggy’s bed and kissed, Foggy laid her back against the sheets — and then, as he leaned over her, the pendant had slipped from his collar, spinning above Marci’s nose. She reached out to trace it, to study the runes, brow furrowed. Then she sat up, forcing Foggy to scramble back into a sitting position as well.

“Why do you have that?” she asked slowly.

“Oh!” Foggy felt himself smiling without quite meaning to. “Matt made it for me. Cool, right?”

“Mm.”

It wasn’t a particularly enthused response. But, well, of course it wasn’t. Marci and Matt didn’t like each other much already. Interrupting a super-hot make out session to talk about a present from him wasn’t doing anyone any favors. Best to get back to what they’d been doing. But when Foggy leaned in again, Marci put up her hand to block the kiss.

“No.”

“Huh? What’s wron—”

She tapped her nails twice against his pendant and sighed like he was being an idiot.

“Foggy Bear, sweetie... I don’t share. And I don’t play second fiddle. So... I think we’re done here. Don’t you?”

“It’s not—” Foggy shook his head. “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not! It’s just a good luck charm.”

She scoffed.

“I guess that’s one way to put it.”

Though Foggy tried his damnedest to plead his case, Marci’s tone was final; there really wasn’t anything he could say to convince her. She left, and for the next three hours Foggy burrowed under the covers of his bed and laid there like a lump.

That night, Matt broke his vow of school-week sobriety to get them both so drunk they barely made it home. Healthy coping mechanism? No. But as far as shows of solidarity went, it was a big one. They collapsed together on Matt’s bed because it was closest to the door. They’d already had their arms around each other for the sake of balance, so they ended up tangled together with Matt whuffing whiskey-breath against Foggy’s collar. 

And as Foggy drifted off, secure in the knowledge that he would probably wake up with pins and needles in his right arm, he thought... Well. He almost thought Matt mumbled the word ‘mine’.


	2. Chapter 2

Nearly ten years after Foggy first met Matt, a terrified Karen Page claimed she was saved by a dragon. And that time— that time Foggy’s blood did run a little cold.

“I mean he didn’t look— he wasn’t a dragon the whole way,” amended Karen, backtracking in the middle of her story. “But he had these black horns, and massive red wings, and a tail! So maybe he’s a... Half-dragon? Is that a thing?”

“Half-shift,” Foggy corrected numbly, heart pounding. “That’s a dragon in half-shift. Midway between two forms.”

That was... Ok, that was bad. Not only was he red, but a dragon who could half-shift meant a dragon with a human form. Those were, for one thing, more powerful, and for the other, able to blend in to a human population. This guy could be anywhere in the city. Ready to— to pounce and take Foggy away from his path, from Matt and the firm and...

“Be right back,” Foggy said, rushed, before barricading himself in the bathroom to freak out.

Karen seemed nice and all, but they were definitely not yet at the ‘witness an anxiety attack’ stage of their acquaintanceship. Plus... Foggy and Matt were both already stressed enough by starting up their firm — no need to worry Matt about this too. No, Foggy just needed a minute to calm down. Or like, five. Five minutes. Maybe ten.

There was a rap of knuckles on the door.

“Foggy,” Matt called. “Hey, are you ok in there? Karen said you looked a little sick.”

“I’m fine,” Foggy managed to croak back in the least convincing voice possible.

“Ok, that’s a lie.” The doorknob rattled. “C’mon, buddy, don’t make me pick this lock.”

As entertaining as that might have been normally, Foggy didn’t want to draw any more attention than he had to. He unlocked the door. Matt crowded inside immediately with a guilt-inducing look of concern creasing his face.

“Foggy, what’s wrong?”

“It’s stupid.”

Because it was, because Foggy should have known and prepared like his mom had told him to instead of just doing the professional equivalent of sticking his fingers in his ears and shouting ‘la la la’. He shouldn’t have gone to Columbia. He shouldn’t have met Matt, because now he was just going to lose him and that would be unbearable.

“The dragon?” Matt asked gently, and tears burned hot at the back of Foggy’s eyes.

“It wasn’t supposed to be real!”

“Foggy—”

“Matt, I.” Foggy’s voice cracked and he blew out a shaky breath. “I don’t want it to get me. I mean we only just, we just started. Nelson and Murdock, our dream. I don’t want it all to be over. I don’t want to leave.”

Matt’s hands landed solidly on Foggy’s shoulders.

“You’re staying right here,” he said, low and sure. “I won’t let anyone take you away from where you want to be, Foggy.”

Foggy laughed, scrubbing at his tears with the heels of his palms.

“Gonna fight a dragon for me, buddy?” he asked, finally feeling the weight of fear lift off his heart with the joke. “Be my knight in shining armor?”

Matt smiled at that, but it was a brittle, painful thing. Immediately, Foggy felt like a dick. Matt had a mean right hook, but pretty much nobody stood a chance against a dragon. He didn’t need Foggy rubbing it in, even as a joke — Matt had always been sensitive about things he couldn’t do, regardless of the reasons he couldn’t do them, just because he’d encountered so many ableist jackholes that didn’t think he could do _anything_.

“Sorry. I’m just.”

 _Scared_.

Matt seemed to understand. He pulled Foggy into a tight hug, and didn’t let go until Foggy pulled back.

“It’s all going to be ok, Foggy. It is. Why don’t— why don’t you take the rest of the day off? I’ll walk you home.”

Part of Foggy wanted to protest. The rest of him was already exhausted from the burst of adrenaline that had washed over him at the mention of Karen’s dragon savior. He let Matt walk him home.

—

More and more sightings of the dragon vigilante were reported all over the neighborhood. Always in half-shift, always protecting people from organized crime. The press had started calling him Daredevil, which Foggy personally thought was a ridiculous name. But at least the guy wasn’t wholly evil, Foggy contented himself, even if he was violent and breaking the law. He was at least hopeful that if, when, _if_ it happened, Daredevil wouldn’t hurt him. That didn’t mean Foggy _wanted_ to be kidnapped. So he was more careful than usual. Not staying late at the office. Lit streets only. Buddy system stuff. But no amount of grade school precautions could save a guy from a fishtailing taxi. Especially when he had to penguin shuffle or risk cracking his head open on the icy sidewalk.

No, only Daredevil could save him from that, apparently.

Foggy had about two seconds for his life to flash in front of his eyes before he was knocked backwards. He didn’t hit the ground though — his fall was cushioned by a huge, scaly red tail. By the time he’d scrambled out of it and gotten sufficient distance, the dragon had wrapped around the runaway cab and halted it before it could careen into a warehouse, the river, or some other poor unsuspecting lawyer. The driver and his passenger, miraculously unhurt, flung open the taxi doors and ran. Foggy probably should have run too. Every time he’d imagined this scenario, he had fled without hesitation. But he found himself rooted to the spot instead.

The fully-transformed dragon was huge. Bigger even than Foggy’s nightmares had made it out to be. Probably almost thirty feet in length from snout to tail. Its red scales glowed ruby-bright as it flared its wings and flicked out a tongue to scent the air. There were no arms or legs, just the wings and a long serpentine body that twined and coiled like a pit of vipers. Its head was elegant and sharp, tipped with two backwards-slanting ebony horns. Its eyes were gold and luminous — and not fixed on Foggy at all.

He took a shaky breath. The dragon’s eyes still didn’t lock on him, but it tilted its head in a motion so impossibly familiar it made Foggy’s lungs squeeze in his chest.

“... Matt?”

—

How a dragon of all things could pull off the guilty kicked-puppy look Matt reserved for when he knew he’d fucked up, Foggy would never know. But it wasn’t slowing Foggy’s roll any, because he was one hundred percent desensitized to that shit and he needed to shout.

“—didn’t think for one minute when I was bawling my eyes out like a loser to say ‘hey Foggy actually I’m the dragon so no worries’?! Ten years of my life, Matthew! Ten! Freaking! Years! I thought I was going to lose everything I’d built! I was scared shitless and you didn’t have the balls to come clean even then?! You—!”

Foggy’s rant jerked to a stop as a scaly crimson tail wrapped snugly around his middle and tugged him closer to the object of his fury. With a flex of the wings and a stretch of his long neck, the dragon — Matt — the _dragon_ lowered himself closer to the ground. Coiling into a spiral, he blocked out the ambient city light by fanning his wings over top of them like a canopy. Foggy expected it to go pitch dark, but he could actually still see pretty well because Matt’s chest glowed like a hearth.

A massive jaw rubbed oh-so-gently against Foggy’s shoulder, and fist-sized nostrils huffed out air thick with a familiar woodsmoke scent.

Foggy could hardly believe what he was witnessing. Cuddles. The jackass thought he could fix everything with cuddles! Well! Foggy was not having that. Not one bit.

“Go. Fuck. Yourself. Murdock,” he insisted, trying and failing to extricate himself from the confines of Matt’s tail.

Matt’s only reply was a sad rumbling noise and another little nuzzle from his scaly cheek. Foggy had always expected dragon scales to be rough, but Matt’s were smooth and sleek and continuous — snakelike.

They were also very familiar.

One of Foggy’s hands darted to his throat, to the cord of the necklace Matt had given him in college. The one he still never took off.

“You— you knew all along that the prophecy was about you!” he accused, trying to push aside whatever hot, melting feeling came with the realization that Matt had given Foggy one of his own scales. “From that very first night! You just listened to me prattle on about dragons not living in the city like a total space cadet!”

Matt blinked big, innocent gold eyes in his general direction and Foggy wanted to scream from frustration.

“You are not cute,” he insisted, very firmly, “and I’m not cutting you any slack. Will you change back to a form that can speak human languages and argue with me like a man already!”

Matt blinked again, and then began to shrink. His shortening tail uncoiled from around Foggy. The transformation from fuck-off huge dragon to familiar human-sized best friend was a lot smoother than Foggy had expected. Except that Matt, of course, stopped in his half-shifted form — which left him approximately six inches taller than normal, not counting his horns. His eyes were probably still gold, but since he was in his black crime fighting gear, cloth mask — or rather, blindfold — included, Foggy had no way of knowing for sure.

“Better?” Matt asked in the fakest innocent tone Foggy had ever heard in his life.

“You’re an asshole,” Foggy told him. “Start explaining yourself.”

Matt hunched his shoulders. Fidgeted. And then there was a loose pressure on Foggy’s ankle; he looked down to find the end of Matt’s tail curled around it.

“I didn’t mean to, to make things harder on you,” Matt said, earnest and pleading. “But what was I supposed to say, Foggy? You were so afraid of the dragon, you _hated_ it, and I didn’t want you to...”

He trailed off, shrugging, but Foggy could figure out the rest from context clues. _Hate me too_. He sighed.

“You are the dumbest smart person I’ve ever met.”

Matt puffed up in indignation, wings rustling.

“What’s that supposed to—”

“Matt,” Foggy said with a saint-like level of patience, “I hated the dragon because it was going to take me away from my life with _you_.”

Matt’s mouth fell open into a startled O shape. Admirably, Foggy stopped himself from dropping his face into his hands.

* * *

Having it out in the middle of the docks was inadvisable at best, so the two of them hied themselves to Matt’s place, which was closer. But the realizations, the odd little quirks of Matt’s that Foggy had always brushed off, the moments in their friendship that had always felt out of place, had been building the entire way, and one burst out as soon as the door was closed behind them.

“Oh my god. The frat guys, freshman year. They really did see a dragon, they saw _you_! You literally transformed to scare the shit out of them and _you never told me_!”

Matt fidgeted, shrugged.

“They hurt you. Anyway, it’s not.” There was a pause; Matt shook himself, then his posture shifted, back to the broad-shouldered apex predator stance of the vigilante. “It’s not like _you_ never kept things from _me_. About how you feel. What you want.”

Matt took a step forward. Foggy backed up.

“W-what?”

Matt backed him further into the apartment with slow steps and a horribly innocent look on his face — ‘who, me, blocking the whole entryway with my ridiculous wings?’

“C’mon, Fogs, don’t get shy on me now.”

“Hey, you’re the one who needed to be taller than me to be brave enough for this conversation, buddy, just saying.”

“I’m always taller than you,” Matt said, a teasing smile lurking at the corners of his lips.

“A one-inch difference is not ‘taller than me’, Matthew,” Foggy informed him.

“Not to be pedantic—” _Ah, a lie_ , Foggy thought, trying not to swallow nervously as Matt loomed over him, still in half-shift— “but yes it is. Now. _Stop deflecting_.”

“I.” Foggy gave in and swallowed, shifting back another step. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Once Matt was past the entryway, he stretched his wings a little, rolled his shoulders. Taking up more space to keep Foggy’s heart racing like a bunny rabbit, the asshole. And then he slid off his mask to reveal golden eyes, just like his full dragon form, molten with emotion in a way that made Foggy suck in a gasp.

“You said you didn’t want to be taken away from your life _with me_ ,” Matt murmured. “Our life together.”

“S-so what?”

“So you’re in love with me,” Matt concluded, irritatingly sure of himself. “You want me to kiss you.”

Foggy stood his ground on the power of spite alone.

“No. Nope. No. We are not talking about any feelings I may or may not have, Murdock, we are talking about why the hell I had to find out you were a dragon ten years and change after I should have!”

That initiated ten more minutes of shuffling and sidestepping. But Foggy was determined and he was going to get his answers. If he had to compromise and let Matt snuggle up to him, well, that was no great sacrifice.

“After I heard the prophecy, I, I panicked,” Matt murmured, nuzzling his jaw against Foggy’s left temple. “I thought, if I got close to you I’d be ruining your life. It was better for us to stay apart. But... You were so bright, and open, and... Well, you were practically gift-wrapped for me. It’s rude not to accept an offering. Especially one so... Tempting.”

Tempting was about the last word Foggy would have used to describe himself at nineteen. Especially on that particular night.

“What, chubby geeks trussed up like turkeys really crank your motor?” he asked, trying for a laugh and getting something shockingly brittle and insecure instead.

 _Am I seriously not over that_ , he wondered to himself, because it had truly been years since he’d felt so ill-fitting in his own skin — but maybe it had been easier not to think about body image issues with other things on his mind. Schoolwork, internships, setting up a business, freaking out about the dragon... So many distractions.

Matt’s hand closed, oh-so-gently, over Foggy’s throat with a pressure as light as the brush of fabric on skin.

“Don’t talk about yourself like that,” he ordered, quiet and firm. “What are you trying to convince me of? I know your body, Foggy. There’s nothing to hide or reveal. Nothing to laugh off or gloss over. Everything about you is a part of you, and it’s all wonderful.”

Which was. Just. Entirely too much. Seriously. Where did Matt get off being such a smooth bastard when deep down he was the biggest dork Foggy had ever met? It was the secret biceps all over again. Totally unfair.

“Matt...”

The hand at Foggy’s throat slid up to cup his cheek.

“Foggy, I don’t... I don’t want you to have any doubts that our feelings for each other are the same. You’re mine. And I’m yours. From the moment we met. And it’s not about, about some stupid prophecy. It’s because we decided we were in this with each other, even when it was hard. It’s because we’re best when we’re together. Aren’t we?”

Foggy gave in and leaned into the comforting touch instead of steeling himself for a rejection that would never come — a rejection that had only ever been conjured by his own insecurities — because... Matt was right. The two of them, they both had things that made them flinch away from intimacy, but hadn’t they pushed past those to care for each other as friends? They could push past them for this too.

“Yeah,” he agreed, voice thick. “Yeah, we are.”

Matt smiled, the same sweet smile from college even with black horns interrupting the familiar dark sweep of his hair, even with eyes that glowed like coals and ruby-red wings peeking up over his shoulders. So many years quietly fretting and worrying about losing— himself, his family, Matt, _everything_ when the dragon stole him away... Only to find he’d been taken ages ago with deft hands, passionate words, and a shy grin. He was still dizzy from the reversal of all his expectations.

But, Matt was there to hold him up, like always.

“Bedroom?” he asked Foggy hopefully, already inching them towards it.

“For sleep,” Foggy insisted. “Only. We can worry about the rest in the morning. And I’m putting my foot down now, no cuddling with these out.”

Reaching up a hand, Foggy tugged lightly on one of Matt’s horns — Matt followed the movement, tipping his head to the side.

“So picky.”

“So _human_ and _fragile_ , Murdock.”

A lascivious grin split Matt’s mouth.

“Don’t worry, treasure,” he crooned, before tripping Foggy back onto the bed with his stupid tail. “I’m a delicate touch.”

“Oh my god. You are thoroughly embarrassing.”

Away went the gold eyes and the horns and the wings and the tail, but the grin stayed.

“Yeah, but you’re stuck with me now.”

Fair enough. But, well... For Foggy’s money, that wasn’t such a terrible fate.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Scales Of Justice](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28569921) by [MissMoochy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissMoochy/pseuds/MissMoochy)




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